Letter to Belinda Read online

  “Considering a separation? So that means he is definitely married. Or was, before you took him out!”

  “I did not ‘take him out’! Apparently he had a bad heart. His wife just left on a European River cruise, and he invited me to come over for a visit. I live next door, you know. This is his Summer House.”

  “So why didn’t you walk over, instead of driving your car, and closing it up in his garage?”

  “You’ve been in the garage? I guess you saw my suitcases in the car then?”

  “No, I didn’t notice.”

  “Leon and I were planning to go to a casino resort in Biloxi this morning and stay a few days.”

  “To celebrate his wife being gone, huh?”

  “Just to have something to do! My god, Travis, it’s lonely being rich! You can’t trust just anybody, because you don’t know men’s motives! Once they find out I have money, it’s all over! They are determined not to let me get away, because they see me as their meal ticket for the rest of their lives! And I can’t conceal the fact that I’m wealthy for long! My only hope of meeting someone decent is to find someone so rich themselves that it doesn’t matter how rich I am! Unfortunately, all of those kinds are so snobbish I can’t stand them! I’m glad I won the lottery, and I’m glad you helped me win, even though you won’t admit it, but there are times I wish I was poor again! I have spent money outrageously, but it builds interest faster than I can spend it.”

  “Poor girl! I can see how that would be a rough life!”

  “I’m serious, Travis! Having so much money scares me! There is no limit to what some people wouldn’t do to get their hands on it!”

  “You can always give it away. There is no end to the charities you could give it to! You can even throw a million my way!”

  “Seriously? If you want it, I’ll give it to you!”

  “No, I’m just joking, you ought to know that. I wouldn’t take money from you.”

  “See? That’s why you are the only person I can turn to in a mess like this. You are the only one I can trust!”

  “Too bad I’m already married, huh?”

  “You had better believe it!”

  “Okay, it’s going on toward midnight. What are we going to do about this mess here?”

  “I want to just go home and pretend it never happened.”

  “Well, yeah, that would be nice, but unfortunately there is a dead man in there, and when he’s found, there is going to be a trail right back to you.”

  “Then we’ve got to do something. Can we just leave him here and try to erase all evidence that we were here?”

  “The best advice I can give is to pick up the telephone and call 911. Tell them the truth. That the two of you were about to get naughty, when he dropped dead of a heart attack. You might get away with not telling them that you were naked and handcuffed to the headboard for 24 hours, but you would have to have a pretty good reason for not reporting it until now. The autopsy will reveal how long he has been dead. And with the high tech ways they have of gathering evidence now days, they could probably figure out exactly what happened, so if you don’t tell the truth, they will wonder why. Just be straightforward with them.”

  “I could just say I was scared.”

  “Certainly. That would work. There is no crime in admitting that you were scared after he died on you like that . . . so to speak.”

  “But any way you look at it, there is going to be a scandal!”

  “Yeah, the ‘good judge’ will be caught with his pants down, but a scandal can’t hurt him any worse than the heart attack did.”

  “Who’s worried about him? It’s my reputation that’s going to be shot! Since I’ve talked to you last, I’ve started going to church, and I am a Sunday school teacher! How is this going to make me look?”

  “Like a real, blue-chip hypocrite.”

  “Exactly! I could never show my face in church again!”

  “I don’t see why not. Church is the best place for sinners.”

  “No, I just couldn’t do it!”

  “So what did you have in mind as a way of covering this up?”

  “Well, I had a lot of time to think while I was lying there. I thought you might help me bury him in the woods or something.”

  “Is that the best idea you can come up with, burying him in the woods?”

  “No, my best idea was to gather my things and wipe off my fingerprints, and make it look like I was never here. But then I thought about his body sitting over here decaying. I couldn’t stand the thought of him rotting in his own house!”

  “I’m sure someone would find him before long.”

  “No, he said his wife is going to be gone for three weeks, and he had already told his friends he was going to be gone and unreachable until she got back. Actually, he and I had planned a two week romp. After we left Biloxi, we were just going to be spontaneous, and go wherever we got the notion to go. We thought about going to the Grand Canyon, or San Francisco.”

  “So the bottom line is, no one will be looking for him here.

  “That’s right, not for three weeks anyway. If they call here looking for him, they won’t think anything is wrong if they can’t get him.”

  Travis just shook his head. Finally he concluded, “Well, either you’re going to have to call the police, like I said, and lay out the whole embarrassing truth, or wipe the place clean and pretend you were never here, which means he’s going to be pretty ripe after three weeks. I recommend the former. The truth is always the best choice, considering the complications that could arise if you try to cover it up. By electing to cover this up, you also break the law.”

  “What about the third choice?”

  “What third choice?”

  “That we dispose of his body somehow and pretend it never happened. I can live with burying him, but I can’t just leave him here!”

  “So you’re not even going to consider option one?”

  “No, it’s out of the question!”

  He ran his hands through his hair in irritation. “I should have left you cuffed to the headboard, and just called the police!”

  “I’m glad you didn’t. My first husband is a deputy with the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Department. He would have a field day with this! He would leak it to the press in a heartbeat! My predicament would probably make the national news!”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “I can see the headlines of ‘Whisperings Magazine’ now: ‘Lottery winner found naked, cuffed to headboard’. Travis, I try to stay out of the limelight as much as possible!”

  “I don’t blame you. Well, I’ve set you free, so you can handle this any way you want to. As for me, I’m going to backtrack and wipe my fingerprints off everything I can remember touching, and make my exit. It’s getting late.”

  “That’s it? You’re not going to help me dispose of the body?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Can’t you at least give me a few ideas about how to dispose of it?”

  “Miranda, I’m no expert on disposing of bodies! I’m a coal miner.”

  “But you are also a writer, and you’ve written murder stories before. Surely you have ideas on how to hide a body!”

  He didn’t want to tell her that he had recently been considering that very thing, concerning Jenny’s husband. But she didn’t know about the mess he was going through with Jenny, and didn’t have the time or patience to tell her about it right now. “If I have learned anything from writing murder mysteries, it’s that the murderer usually always makes a mistake, or overlooks a tiny detail that leads to him getting caught. Modern forensics techniques are so advanced that the odds are stacked heavily against you.”

  “But I’m no murderer. I just want to avoid embarrassment.”

  �
�But you would look like a murderer if you tried to hide the body. I’m telling you, just call 911 and report that you found your neighbor dead in his house. If there is no evidence of foul play, and plenty of evidence for natural death, how could they suspect you of anything?”

  “I’m going home to think about it awhile. I have to get out of this house.”

  “I can understand that. Okay then, I’m going to go through the house and wipe out all my fingerprints, from everything I can remember touching.”

  “Then I guess I’ll clean up my mess and go home too. I’ll get my car out of the garage and put his in its place. Oh my! Why does it seem like I leave nothing but destruction in my wake? Everything I touch turns to crap!”

  “This wasn’t your fault. It was just one of those things that happens. Blame it on the Judge for having an unhealthy diet that made him susceptible to a heart attack. That’s probably what caused this.”

  “The Viagra I gave him didn’t help either.”

  “Probably not. Let’s get busy if we’re going to get out of here before one o’clock.”

  “I’ll have to disarm the security system to leave the house.”

  “And you’ll have to leave it off, because there is no way to turn it back on once you get out of the house. But that’s okay. With him here, the investigators will think he had it off because he was at home.”

  “Should we go ahead and turn it off?”

  “We probably ought to. Where is it?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Let’s look around the front door.”

  They found a small sensor above the front door with a tiny red light on it. A wire led from the sensor down the corner to the coat closet. Inside the coat closet was a monitor box with a series of red and green lights. A key was in the ‘on’ position. Travis turned the key to ‘off’, and all the green lights went to red. A small LED screen read ‘SECURITY SYSTEM OFF’.

  “There, that ought to do it. Now, let’s clean this place up. Come with me out to the garage. I saw something out there we need.”

  He took her to the garage, past her car, to the utility closet where he had entered the house. The folding trap door was still down, just as he left it.

  “Here.” He got a pack of latex gloves off the shelf and gave a pair to her, and a pair for himself, and they put them on. He then passed her a dust cloth.

  “Wear these gloves until you get home, then destroy them. Use the cloth to wipe off anything you might have touched while you were here.”

  She went to do as she was told, and Travis figured the best place for him to start would be in the attic, where he had come in. He returned to the attic and duck-walked across the ceiling studs to the ventilation duct. He raised up out of the roof and wiped off the turbine, and the outside of the duct, then found the two screws. The two cross bars he had broken loose were almost out of reach, but he was able to get them and wipe them off too, and left them inside the attic. He then set the turbine down on the duct, aligned the screw holes, and put the screws back in the holes from the inside, to hold the turbine in place.

  As he was duck-walking back toward the ladder, he noted that he was leaving distinct footprints on the dusty studs. He went back and smeared them as he retreated toward the ladder. He wiped the ladder down, folded it up, and closed it. He wiped the dust off his shoes, off the floor, then proceeded to wipe down anything he or Miranda might have touched on his way back through the garage and into the house.

  He wiped down everything in the living room, the hall and bathroom, while Miranda worked in the bedroom. He went to the front door and wiped down the coat closet, and the security system. As he was trying to remember if he had touched anything else, Miranda carried an arm-load of things out to the garage to put in her car. He heard her start her car, and went to the garage to see that she had raised the garage door and backed out. She left her car running while she got in the judge’s car and pulled it into the garage.

  “Let’s walk through the house one more time,” Travis said, “Just to make sure we cleaned everything and left nothing behind.” They went through every room, ending up in the bedroom.

  “Is that where you want to leave him, in the floor?”

  “Why not? That’s where he fell.”

  “Okay, well, I’m going to throw the covers back on the bed, as though he had just gotten up out of bed, when he dropped dead.” Miranda preferred not to look at the dead man, but she couldn’t help taking one last look.

  “Is there anything you can do about that?”

  “No, that’s the effect of the Viagra. Probably not a bad way to go to the next life.”

  “I’m not laughing, Travis.”

  “What about this?” He held up the sealed letter addressed ‘To Belinda’. “Want to see what it says?”

  “No, I don’t want to disrupt anything that I don’t have to. That’s a sealed letter.”

  “So you aren’t even curious as to what it says?”

  “Not right now. I just want to get out of here!”

  “If everything is in order, then we can leave.”

  “No complaint from me.”

  Miranda’s decision to not read the letter to Belinda, would turn out to be the most unfortunate mistake of this whole mess. Like a snowball rolling downhill, things could only get worse.

  They left the house, leaving the door unlocked. Miranda’s car was still running. She turned to Travis as he pulled his truck keys out of his pocket.

  “Travis, thank you for coming out here. You really saved my life.”

  “I’m sure you would have gotten loose on your own somehow, but I was glad to help.”

  “I owe you one.”

  “You sure do!”

  “Would you like to come over to my house? It’s just next door. You’ve never seen my new house, have you?”

  “No I haven’t.”

  “Follow me over there and I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

  “Sorry, but it’s after one, and I really need to get home. I’ll take a rain check on that iced coffee though.”

  “That’s right, you can’t drink it hot. I remember now. Sure, come over some night when you get off work and we’ll talk.”

  “I might do that some time, but right now I have to get home.”

  “Can I have a hug before you go?”

  “You probably need one don’t you?”

  “You have no idea!” She burst into tears as she fell into his arms, grasping him tightly. “I make such a mess of everything I try to do!” she sobbed. “Being rich hasn’t helped me any in that regard!”

  “I’m sure things will look better tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep in your own bed, and try to forget this ever happened.”

  “I’ll try. Can I call you at work in a couple days, if I need someone to talk to?”

  “Sure, just call about 10:30 p.m., to catch me before I leave.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that.” She gave him one last squeeze and went to her car. He got in his truck and followed her out the driveway. She turned back toward Kellerman store, went only a short distance, then turned into her driveway, as Travis went on home.

  It was 2 a.m. when he got home. Janice was in bed asleep with a book open on her chest. She had tried to wait up for him, but couldn’t. He closed the book and placed it on the nightstand, then turned out the lamp and slipped into bed beside her without her waking up.

  She stirred, changed positions and mumbled, “Must have been something really bad, for you to work over.”

  “Bad was not the word for it.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’d rather forget it even happened.”

  “Okay. I’ve got some news for you, though, concerning Jenny.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “It d
epends on how you take it.”

  “Go ahead, give it to me!”

  “Brace yourself. Jenny has gone back to Rodney. She says she loves him, and that’s all that matters. Are you angry?”

  “No, I’m not. In fact, I’m more relieved than anything. It defuses the situation. If the mess had continued, I was probably going to find a solution my way!”

  “I know.”

  “So that’s her decision? Okay, she is going to have to live with it.”

  “I know, and that’s what I told her.”

  “She understands the ramifications of her decision?”

  “She says she does, but who knows, with her? She said she would rather go back to him, than see you kill him.”

  He looked at her narrowly.

  “You don’t have to pretend with me, Travis! I know you, and your solution to things. I told Jenny that if she really loved Rodney, she had better go back to him, because if she didn’t, you were going to kill him!”

  “You actually told her that?”

  “Yes I did. Was I wrong in doing it?”

  “Well, you probably made her feel like she had to go back to him, instead of her wanting to.”

  “Maybe, but it will work itself out. At any rate, it’s her problem. I don’t need you going to jail for murder!”

  They both lay awake for some time in the dark, before finally going to sleep. Raising children was an ordeal that they hoped they could survive.

  3

  The next morning, Travis was up early, making last minute arrangements for his and Drew’s trip to England. It would be easier to leave, now that Jenny’s situation had changed. The trip was more than just a vacation, it was the fulfillment of his promised gift to his oldest son. He had promised all his five children that he would take them somewhere overseas before they graduated from High School. Not all of them together as a family, but a personalized trip for each of them, taking them wherever they wanted to go. He had kept that promise to Jenny, his oldest, in 1996, by taking her to her to the rain forest in Peru. The next year, in 1997, he took his wife, Janice to Greece, because he sensed that she was a little jealous that he was taking the kids somewhere nice, but not her. He had originally planned the trip for Drew, but then Drew said he wanted to go to a country where they spoke English. So he went ahead with the trip to Greece, and took Janice instead of Drew. Now, in 1998, he was taking Drew to his choice of destination, which was England. He had learned that the English Department at the University of Central Alabama was sponsoring this seven day trip to London, and Southern England, to give their Literature majors a taste of Shakespeare’s homeland. Of course, this trip, like most other school trips, was open to more than just college students. Anyone could go, if they had a passport, and $1,275. So he signed up Drew and himself, and as a surprise, Travis’ mother said she also wanted to go, so all three of them signed up.